My Enemy, the Human Anonymous 12th Grade

World War II is remembered as a struggle against an obviously evil entity; it was the Allied forces’ fight to put down the Axis powers and bring to an end the Nazi’s fascist regime. Allied troops are often exalted as heroes, and remembered for their efforts to secure an Ally victory. Contrastingly, Axis soldiers—Germans in particular—are vilified. Those who fought for Nazi Germany are regarded as the embodiment of evil, yet the Nazi regime and its leaders were the true enemies. Many of the common foot soldiers were simply Hitler’s countrymen. Anti-semitism, racism, and homophobia were prevalent in most of the world, and many of Germany’s soldiers likely prescribed to much of Hitler’s ideology. But the western world often forgets that these soldiers were also men, and so Kurt Vonnegut’s portrayal of the Nazi’s in Slaughterhouse-Five serves to remind readers of their enemy’s humanity.

Following the disbandment of the Three Musketeers, readers are introduced to Billy Pilgrim’s captors. These men are not a group of highly trained soldiers. Instead, they are a collection of “irregulars, armed and clothed fragmentarily with junk taken from real soldiers who were newly dead.” Their mismatched appearance serves to show how ill-prepared...